1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for coordinating test execution and dynamic data, and more particularly, to an apparatus for testing a network and sequentially coordinating test execution and dynamic data.
2. Description of the Related Art
The term ‘test software’ is used to describe a software product whose primary function is to examine how a system is functioning. The test software collects its input from agents, which are individual members of the system under examination.
Some examples of implementations of test software are: river water quality monitors, automobile performance test systems, and telecommunications network test systems.
Some systems under examination are geographically or temporally distributed. The test software for such systems needs to collect data from different locations or different times, to completely test the system. The test software also needs coordination and exchange of data that changes during the test (dynamic data) between different parts of the system, to carry out the examination in a meaningful manner.
A ‘sequence test’ can be used to test a network. The sequence test allows an agent to run a sequence of predesigned tests in accordance with the agent's scheduler. The agent's scheduler takes into account all of the tasks (tests and subtests) the agent is supposed to accomplish, and determines when the tasks are run.
This solution has several disadvantages. For example, there is no “on-demand” ability to run the sequence of tests. In other words, in the sequence test, if a user wants to run a test or sequence of tests on an agent, the agent's scheduler determines when the tests are run, not the user.
Further, the sequence test has limited dynamic test data capabilities. In other words, dynamic test data, or dynamic data (data that changes during the tests) can only be shared inside a singular sequence. Additionally, the sequence test has no remote session capabilities; the sequence will only run on the specified agent. Thus, the sequence test has no ability to interact with other software applications, such as third party software applications.
Additionally, if a specified agent had both a standard network interface (for example, a LAN (Local-Area Network) interface) and a transient interface (for example GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), or dialup), the sequence test can only test one or the other.